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The Reviews For Apple's HomePod Are In And They're... Mixed

Are You Gonna Get One?

PrintIan Lang

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Long Story Short

Apple lifted the embargo on reviews for its highly-anticipated HomePod smart speaker ahead of its Feb 9th release. They're honestly pretty mixed, but in aggregate they actually create a roadmap for who the speaker's for (and who it isn't). The HomePod will cost $349 (about 22k).

Long Story

I can't think of any point in my lifetime when there were more options for home audio. All the standard crap -- home theatres, big honking stereo systems, shelf-top speakers, etc. -- is still out there. But now there are also approximately 50,000 Bluetooth speakers on the market, large and small and cheap and expensive.

The latest entries are of the "smart" speaker variety: expensive, high-quality, self-contained speakers that can a) listen to themselves and automatically adjust their sound to their environment, and b) listen to you so you can use your voice to dim your lights or check the weather or order a hooker or whatever.

Apple's answer to the device trend, the HomePod, falls into the latter category. Finally set for release this Friday after months of speculation as to when it would be available, Apple's lifted the embargo on the first online reviews.

Sound Quality

One thing is pretty clear: All the months of R&D on Apple's part resulted in an exceptionally well-built machine.

All of this means the HomePod sounds noticeably richer and fuller than almost every other speaker we’ve tested. You get a surprisingly impressive amount of bass out of it, but you can still hear all of the details in the midrange and the bass never overwhelms the music. And it’s immediately, obviously noticeable: set in a corner of my kitchen, the HomePod sounded so much better than everything else that our video director Phil Esposito went from thinking the whole thing was kind of dumb to actively pointing out that other speakers sounded bad in comparison.

The sound that comes from the HomePod can best be described as precise. It’s not as loud as some others like Google Home Max or as bright (and versatile) as the Sonos Play 1, but it destroys the muddy sound of less sophisticated options like the Amazon Echo. To genuinely fill a large room you need two but anyone in a small house or apartment will get great sound from one.

To be absolutely clear, there was no comparison in sound quality. HomePod offered so much more quality that it was quite literally laughable to hear the others. The only speaker that sounded decent was the Sonos One, but even it couldn’t compete with HomePod.

It’s hard to explain the sound of HomePod, but you get a feeling that the sound is enveloping you, even when using just one speaker. There is a sense that this is how the songwriter and producer wanted the song to be heard when they recorded it.

You get the idea. Pretty much across the board, the HomePod is among the best-sounding speakers in its class. It may not be as loud as competitors like the (more expensive) Google Home Max, but it's undeniably better at mastering sound across the spectrum. And compared the the smaller, smart-first speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, it's not even a comparison. However...

Intelligence

The "smartness" of a smart speaker may be a secondary concern, but it shouldn't be, for the price we're talking about, and you could get at least as much audio quality for a fraction of that cost if not for the on-board computer. Unfortunately, this is where Apple fell short.

At the time, I gave Siri a pass. After all, Apple’s HomePod, a rival to smart speakers from Amazon and Google, is supposed to study your music preferences over time to create special playlists just for you. I had had only one day with HomePod.

But after a week — during which I asked HomePod to play my favorite tunes from artists like Beck, Talking Heads and David Bowie — the smart speaker still did not learn. Instead, like a stubborn D.J., Siri kept playing music by artists outside my music palette: Taylor Swift and Leroy Francis, to name just two.

If you live in a shared household, you can’t switch profiles to take advantage of Apple Music’s personalized playlist features, or access different accounts’ reminders, notes, or messages, which are what Apple calls “Personal Requests.” Both Amazon and Google’s devices can recognize different people’s voices and automatically switch to their profiles. The HomePod can’t do this.

You can also dictate to-do lists and shopping lists to the HomePod, which will show up in the reminders app on your iPhone (integrated apps like Evernote and Streaks are also supported).

This all works, but there’s a problem: the HomePod is tied to one iPhone for some features, and these features will only work if that iPhone is on the same network. If I’m out of the house and my partner wants to add something to the Shopping List, the HomePod won’t let her, because my iPhone isn't in range.

And on, and on and on. The consensus is pretty strong here: Siri works well, at least to the extent that she's designed to function -- the problem is just that she's not designed to do all that much. It's surprisingly primitive for the company that more or less brought AI assistants into the mainstream, though in fairness to them plenty of people buy smart speakers primarily as music devices. But if you want more than that -- like an actual virtual assistant -- the HomePod might disappoint.

So Should I Buy It?

Based on all the reviews I read, there's a very specific slice of people for whom the HomePod is the best choice. If you have a small to medium-sized space, value sound fidelity above all else and (most importantly) already enjoy the Apple ecosystem, then this is probably as good as it gets.

Apple Music, podcasts, iTunes songs and Beats 1 Music are the only streaming services that you can control with your voice. Anything else has to be slung via Airplay, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Otherwise? You might want to look elsewhere. Amazon and Google both offer "smarter" on-board assistants, and in the case of Google's flagship Home Max, in a similarly impressive (though less sophisticated) audio component.

And if it's booming, room-filling sound you're after, the HomePod probably won't satisfy there, either. Even those who praised its sound quality noted that it could be a little louder, and Apple has yet to ship the software update that allows you to pair multiple HomePods together. And even when they do, 20 grand and more could go a lot farther if big sound is your goal.